this has been haunting me
I saw this image a couple weeks ago.
And for a couple seconds, I thought she was alive. She isn't. She's been dead and mummified for 500 years, supposedly sacrificed by Inca priests at the summit of a volcano on the Argentina-Chile border.
And she's on display, this 15-year-old girl, in a museum in Argentina. I know there are human remains on display in museums all over the world, and it's always bothered me, but it never hit me quite as hard as when I saw this girl they call the Llullaillaco Maiden.
I realize that putting her back where she was found would only make her easy prey for grave robbers, now that the location is known. But I feel she deserves to be laid to rest with dignity, somewhere, now that the scientists have had their chance to study her. She deserves better than to be gawked at by tourists. Hell, even Tutankhamun was returned to his tomb eventually.
I don't know. I'm torn between my respect for the work of archaeologists and my respect for the dead. Still. I'd like to see her at rest. I'd like to see her go home.
And for a couple seconds, I thought she was alive. She isn't. She's been dead and mummified for 500 years, supposedly sacrificed by Inca priests at the summit of a volcano on the Argentina-Chile border.
And she's on display, this 15-year-old girl, in a museum in Argentina. I know there are human remains on display in museums all over the world, and it's always bothered me, but it never hit me quite as hard as when I saw this girl they call the Llullaillaco Maiden.
I realize that putting her back where she was found would only make her easy prey for grave robbers, now that the location is known. But I feel she deserves to be laid to rest with dignity, somewhere, now that the scientists have had their chance to study her. She deserves better than to be gawked at by tourists. Hell, even Tutankhamun was returned to his tomb eventually.
I don't know. I'm torn between my respect for the work of archaeologists and my respect for the dead. Still. I'd like to see her at rest. I'd like to see her go home.